"Out!" "You're crazy! It was on the line!" "Still out."

If you're playing poetry "tennis" without a net, it's not tennis anymore. It's still poetry, but it's a new game. Now, what are the rules for the new game? Do you make them up as you go along? Do you change them as the service changes? Do both players agree to the changes beforehand, or is it more fun to figure them out as you go?

Each of these questions, and many more, must be answered, if the game is to continue. And that's what writing in free verse is all about. You, the author, read your latest draft to the coffee house audience on "open mic" night -- and you decide the next move based on the reaction you get: trash it, rewrite it, or type it up and stick it in your "chapbook" folder. Or your poetry circle's reaction helps you decide that next step. Or your best friend's. Et cetera. It's all part of the game: the audience in each case knocks your serve back to you, and you decide what to do with it. Not that you need a positive reaction to make that decision: you can decide that maybe the audience is wrong, or that your point was not to be liked in that case. (Some people thrive on others' hatred, as long as the hated is in control of their reaction, usually. Trust me on that one.)

But when you're writing in traditional meter (and rhyme), you've got the net up: you're playing The Game. You're not doing "word jazz" anymore, you've gone classical. Not that you can't read your trad stuff aloud on Open Mic at the cafe -- it's just maybe a little odd. Either the audience members tune you out, or they go: "What did you just do?" You put the net up, that's what you did.

So, trad verse is going to have some different expectations when you start to show it, or read it, to someone else. Which you're eventually going to do, right? OK, they may fish it out of your humble possessions after your wake, but they're going to see it. So before you write anything down (or just get it going in your head), you've got to start with those expectations in mind. The net is going to be there. Then what?

You decide. That's poetry, man.